“He said to me, ‘Let the Jews pay for it’,” said Marsha Halteman, director for military and law enforcement programs at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), which led the battle to keep USO Haifa operational.

Hagel’s campaign to close the storied USO port struck many observers, including the U.S. Navy and congressional leaders, as misguided. Those same critics argue today that Hagel’s animosity toward the Jewish state leaves him unsuited to be the nation’s next defense secretary.

Yes, this is a couple of days old, but it’s worth reminding people of heading into the Sunday talk shows. Obama’s main defense of his position vis-a-vis Israel during the campaign was the closeness and expansion of defense and intelligence cooperation. This nomination would seem to justify all the worries some of us had about what a second term would mean.